On the topological complexity of manifolds with abelian fundamental group (Q2121504)

A standard upper bound for the topological complexity of a CW complex \(X\) is given by \(\mathrm{TC}(X) \leq 2 \dim X\). (Here we adapt the article's convention that \(\mathrm{TC}(\mathrm{pt})=0\).) There are plenty of examples of manifolds whose topological complexity coincides with this upper bound. In this case we shall say that the topological complexity is \emph{maximal}. \textit{A. Costa} and \textit{M. Farber} [Commun. Contemp. Math. 12, No. 1, 107--119 (2010; Zbl 1215.55001)] have studied the maximality of topological complexity for cell complexes. They introduced a cohomology class \(v \in H^1(X \times X;I)\), where \(I\) is a certain local coefficient system, and show that \(\mathrm{TC}(X)\) of a \(2n\)-dimensional finite cell complex \(X\) is maximal if and only if \(v^{\cup 2n} \neq 0\). However, this condition is hard to check explicitly. In the present article, \(v\) is called the Costa-Farber class. The authors consider arbitrary closed manifolds with \emph{abelian} fundamental groups and establish a more tangible cohomological criterion that is equivalent to the maximality of topological complexity in this case. This criterion only depends on the fundamental group of the manifold, but no longer on the manifold itself. Methodically, the authors rely on the fact that for an abelian group \(\pi\) the map \(\pi \times \pi \to \pi\), \((g,h) \mapsto gh^{-1}\), is a group homomorphism to relate the Costa-Farber class to the better-explored Berstein-Schwarz class, see for example [\textit{A. N. Dranishnikov} and \textit{Y. B. Rudyak}, Math. Proc. Camb. Philos. Soc. 146, No. 2, 407--413 (2009; Zbl 1171.55002)]. In addition, they establish similar results for the Lusternik-Schnirelmann category of the cofiber \(C_\Delta\) of the diagonal inclusion \(\Delta: X \to X \times X\). There are several classes of spaces for which \(\mathrm{TC}(X)\) and \(\mathrm{cat}(C_\Delta)\) are known to coincide, see for example [\textit{J. M. García Calcines} and \textit{L. Vandembroucq}, Math. Z. 274, No. 1--2, 145--165 (2013; Zbl 1275.55003)]. The authors of the present article show among other things that in the abelian case, \(\mathrm{TC}(X)\) is maximal if and only if \(\mathrm{cat}(\Delta_X)\) is maximal and the two numbers coincide. These results are carried out in Section 2 of the article. In Section 3 the authors derive explicit classes of fundamental groups for which the topological complexity of closed manifolds is non-maximal. They discuss chain-level Pontryagin algebra structures in group homology and use them to carry out explicit calculations. In their main result, the authors provide a list of conditions on abelian groups for which the desired non-maximality holds. All of them are abelian groups whose torsion parts are products of primary cyclic groups for the same. Finally, in Section 4 the authors show by providing examples that their conditions are sharp. More precisely, for various slight relaxations of the conditions, they provide examples of manifolds with such fundamental groups whose topological complexity is maximal.